


Proximity

by Banana_daiquiri



Series: Temptations [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Light Angst, Romance, Series, UST, trope, tropey goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:11:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banana_daiquiri/pseuds/Banana_daiquiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS breaks down, leaving her inhabitants to find their own warmth. Mature rating is for later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proximity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goingtothetardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingtothetardis/gifts).



> This is just the first chapter of the Temptations series.

"NOOOO, no, no, no, NO!" The Doctor threw the tool he'd been using a moment earlier down on the grating so hard that the light at its end went out.

"Or, you could do...that," Rose said flatly.

The Doctor's voice floated out of the darkness, reluctant and petulant. "Bugger."

"Um, you can't fix it?" Rose guessed, her tone anything but questioning.

The answer that came back to her was a heavy sigh. Rose could practically hear him scratching the back of his neck. "Due to extenuating circumstances...no."

"Didn't think any circumstance could extenuate you," Rose muttered, feeling her way onto the jump seat to settle there. A moment later she felt the Doctor land abruptly beside her. They each leaned against the other's shoulder, not speaking. This silent leaning was a step up from the degree to which their friendship had been functioning all day, but neither was ready to talk about it. Rose felt some relief she didn't dare to voice. Let _him_ be relieved for once.

"Something about the atmosphere of this planet," he murmured, his voice gravelly and defeated. "The TARDIS is essentially insisting she needs a kip."

Rose started laughing.

"What?" he asked, his tone clearly indicating that he failed to find the humor in the situation.

"Like a toddler," she chuckled.

"My ship is hundreds of years old, thank you. She's a far cry from a toddler." Although such a comment should have been par for the course, it sent a little arrow of irritation through Rose today.

Rose recalled the last image she'd seen before the lights went out: the Doctor heaving his toy--er, his tool. Perhaps he was also in need of a nap. She continued to snort.

"I'm glad you're amused. You've no idea of the consequences."

"But it's temporary, yeah? A kip, you said. Can't be all that serious, can it, Doctor?"

She felt him shrug noncommittally.

"I think you're just angry we'll have to sit still for a bit."

"Well, no choice, _have_ we?" He snapped irritably. "She won't let me open the doors, we've no light now, we can't take off to BYPASS THE NEED FOR A KIP," he shouted, as though the TARDIS might be listening in. "We're bloody stuck here."

Rose sighed quietly. "Why are you so afraid to be in one spot for so long?"

His voice lowered to a more reasonable, but still miserable, tone. "We're sitting ducks. I hardly know what's out there."

Rose thought for a bit. "You know," she said gently, making her strongest effort to throw in the towel (because the Doctor might run, and the Doctor knew how to run), "when I was a kid and we'd have thunderstorms, I was deathly afraid, yeah? All that noise and darkness, and the lightning. The power would go out and I'd cry and cry...but Mum would pretend to be afraid as well, so I'd end up comforting her. We'd build a fort and she'd ask me to go find a torch quick as I could--and some chocolate biscuits--and we'd huddle down and wait it out."

"Hmmm." The Doctor's tone seemed a bit warmer. "Clever of her."

"Doctor," Rose said, affecting a shocked tone, "are you _complimenting_ my mum?"

"Don't dare tell her," he amended quickly, shooting her a look she could only just see in the dark but whose content she could guess well enough: his eyebrows raised, face deathly serious. Rose laughed, and he eventually chuckled along, a sliver of the tension abating. He was obviously very distracted with his concern for the TARDIS and their predicament.

Rose worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Her mum wasn't the only one good with basic psychology; she knew what was really troubling the Doctor. It hadn't been long since Krop Tor...not long at all. They hadn't really taken a break, just hopped from one place to the next, and he hadn't dealt with it. Well...she might think that if he was human, anyway, but he wasn't. It was always so tempting to think of him in those terms. That's what caused them to fight, most of the time, as much as she hated to admit it (wanting to think she could be more open-minded than that, and could be, most of the time). But she knew for a fact he was having nightmares recently, and their experience on the impossible planet was the most likely cause, though maybe not the _only_ cause. He'd actually fallen asleep on the couch in the media room with her three nights ago--one of the few times she'd ever seen him sleep, outside of being stuck in a prison cell with him--and he'd twitched and mumbled until he bolted upright, his fringe slightly damp with sweat. He'd looked at her almost guiltily, flashed her a fleeting little grin, and busily began dismissing himself from the room despite her placating hand on his. He made some vague excuse so he wouldn't have to cater to her concern, and disappeared.

"C'mon," she said playfully, nudging his shoulder with hers. _"We_ can build a fort."

"We don't even have a torch. We can't even rely on our sentient ship to guide us to the library where we could build a decent one," he said. "We've no idea where the library _is_ right now." He made it sound like she had suggested a military operation.

Rose bit her lips, attempting not to laugh at how serious he seemed about building a hypothetical fort for fun. Her irritation began to replace itself, as it always did, with her desire to show him that she could understand him. "Well," she said evenly, drawing a deep breath, "we're nothing if not adventurous, right, Doctor?" She tilted her chin up defiantly. "Bet we could find our way around your ancient ship even in the dark."

He snorted, sounding vaguely amused. "Are you trying to ruin my bad mood?"

"Might be."

"Well...stop it." 

Rose felt a hand suddenly descend on her abdomen; the Doctor was deceptively agile in the dark, and she suddenly remembered that--as with most things--his night vision was far superior to hers. And here he was, whinging! The nerve.

She giggled helplessly under his attack, pulling her hand from the one still clutching hers so she could turn away from the onslaught. "STOP! Stop, oh, stop, stop!"

"That's what _I_ said."

"Okay, okay, truce!"

He relinquished his title as supreme champion of almost-making-Rose-Tyler-pee-herself, and she abruptly found his hand with hers and pulled him from the jump seat. "Let's go."

"Really though," he said, his tone so sober that she hesitated. "All of our support systems have shut down. Heating, cooling...."

"Our _comfort_ systems," Rose amended, refusing to pander to his drama. "In a vast and endless TARDIS with ecosystems of its own."

"Ecosystems we couldn't possibly locate," he reminded her. The TARDIS mapping system was also down.

She sighed. "Let's just find the library and worry about it from there, yeah?"

"Right. First the library, then the universe, Rose Tyler." The words were playful, but his tone was dull.

Rose attempted to lead him down a corridor--and ran smack into a wall instead. The Doctor crashed full-force into her from behind, knocking the wind out of her. She made a sound that went something like, "UUGGFFFFF."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry!" the Doctor said frantically, turning her around so he could look at her. 

"Doctor," Rose groaned, "I've no night vision. I thought you _did?_ "

She could hear cloth rustle, but didn't realize why until he was pressing a handkerchief to her nose, which was, therefore, bleeding. She leaned forward, pinching it at the bridge--a little trick she'd unfortunately had to learn over the course of their adventures.

"I can," he admitted ruefully.

"Den why wrn't you loodking?" she groaned.

"I forgot you can't see in the dark as well as me," he said sheepishly. "I didn't have time to warn you. You were looking right at me a minute ago!"

"Pure chance, I assure you."

"Noted." He tilted her chin up just slightly, and she sensed him looking her over. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Not brodtken." She sighed, still holding her nose.

"Sorry," he muttered again.

"Yeah, yeah. Blood under the bridge." Rose hastily shoved his handkerchief into her pocket and tugged him a little more forcefully than necessary. "Look, you lead, all right?"

"Righty-o." He fell jauntily ahead of her, tugging her on in turn as he had on so many adventures. She followed him willingly enough, but used her free hand to feel along the wall to her right. She couldn't help it--the deficit in her senses insisted she do so, much as she trusted the Doctor. If he noticed, he wisely didn't take offense.

***

"Okay," the Doctor amended from a previous statement, "the _fourth_ time's the charm." He used the sonic, and the door slid open with an only slightly labored rumbling. "Books!" he cried triumphantly. "And where there are books, there must be a library."

"Faulty logic, Doctor."

"Ah, but I'd recognize my own library anywhere...you silly human," he added as an amused addendum, and Rose dared to think that their earlier frost might be melting.

Though she wasn't entirely sure that it _should_. It had been an important argument, that one. And an ongoing one, though it had always been good-natured up until today. 

"All right then," Rose said, trusting him, as she couldn't see anything in their current darkness. "How are we gonna build our fort?"

"We're really doing that?" he asked, his voice a bit high. She could tell his nose was wrinkled just from the way he said it.

"Didn't come here for the view," Rose said, seriously wanting to kick him.

"Just teasing. Come on." He tugged her again and lead her to a sofa, where he guided her to sit.

"Just how well can you see?" Rose asked curiously, a touch jealous.

"Ooooh, not as well as say, an Amraf cat. But about as well as a Malusian slug."

Oddly enough, as a result of their travels, Rose actually had some reference as to what those things were. Therefore when she said, "Oh," it was with some authority. "So, what do you say? Do we have enough supplies in here to build an ecologically sound fort?"

"Weeellll...come to think of it, I've a number of things in here that could be helpful."

"Books, books, and more books?"

"HA. Shows what you know, Rose Tyler. There're so many things in here. More than just books. I'm the captain of collecting, the docent of documenting, the pickiest of purveyors."

"The rat-packiest of hoarders."

He made just about the most offended sound she'd ever heard him make. "Alliteration, Miss Tyler! I think you've missed my theme. I'm disappointed in you."

She grinned widely in the dark, tongue caught between her teeth, and hoped that he could see it. "Okay. Rat-packiest of requisitioners."

" _Thank_ you!" A beat. "Oi!"

***

Some time later they were hunched down in their blanket fort, their faces gently lit by Aquanuis bulbs, which were little organic bulbs lit with magnesium light. Grown, not manufactured, much like the TARDIS herself. They were from the second moon of Piktuk. They changed color depending on the mood of the observer, and right now they were red, the trickiest color to see by. Rose was delighted anyway.

"So what's red mean?" She asked.

His look (what she could see of it) suggested she was a bit daft. "It means alarm. We're rather alarmed, you and I."

"Are we."

"Yes."

"Oh, I dunno," Rose said, settling down on her stomach and propping her chin on her hands. _Irritated, maybe,_ she thought. "I think this is rather comfy. _Is_ getting a bit cold, though."

"Hang on a tick--" The Doctor lifted the edge of their fort, which was currently supported by a.) the sofa and b.) tall stacks of books at several strategic points. He reappeared a moment later with a spare blanket and arranged it over her. "There. Better?"

"Yes. But aren't you cold?"

"Cold?" he snorted. "Me?" 

"Okay, okay." Rose rolled her eyes, cutting him off. She could already see where this was going, and she didn't want to hear another word about his superior biology and his distinct lack of humanity. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound; he pretty much never stopped reminding her how superior his "everything" was, and, beyond her imagination running wildly away with her, she was starting to feel like the ape he'd initially accused her of being. 

Though, often...thoughts of his particular biology kept her awake at night. Awake and...bothered. 

"We've no tea or biscuits," she lamented. "That's the only thing wrong with this picture." She took a deep breath. "Well. It won't last...surely the TARDIS'll be back up and running soon. Until then, let's play a game or something."

"All right." He settled down comfortably across from her, leaning back on his hands with his long legs stretched out in front of him. He crossed them at the ankles and tapped her shoulder with the toe of one trainer. "What sort of game?"

She thought, and then her eyes brightened. "Oh! I know! Doesn't have to be a game, exactly. We could just...get to know each other better."

He raised an eyebrow, but something flashed behind his eyes reservedly.

"I mean we talk all the time," Rose said, gesturing with one hand out, "but when we're alone we're too tired to do much except watch movies, or sleep, or you're fixin' something. We don't ever get to find out the little things."

"Such as?"

Rose bit a nail, studying him. She knew the Doctor wasn't certain he liked where this was going; talking at length about what he thought, felt, or had experienced had a not-so-distant history of becoming...difficult.

Like this morning, when she'd snapped at him for waking her up at 5am for the billionth time. Of course he'd left the room silently, and she'd been unable to sleep after that. Finally she'd gotten up and stomped into the kitchen, where they'd gotten into an argument about his lack of humanity and her lack of "motivation." From there it had all degenerated into a discussion of how the Doctor never discussed his feelings, whereas Rose discussed hers too often.

She'd countered with the assertion that it wasn't fair for him to accuse her of that; she was very low-maintenance, thank you.

About as low-maintenance as her mother, he'd said, which had earned him a wide-eyed, burning stare from Rose. It was a comment she _might_ have anticipated from his last incarnation, but not this one. They had tried to end the argument there, knowing that it could only escalate. They'd stayed frosty with each other for hours, and even now were tetchy.

"I know," Rose said, calculating. "What was your family like, growing up?"

He just looked at her for a long moment. Eventually she began to realize that he wasn't going to answer, and she berated herself more and more by the moment for asking, for making the hole wider. Deep down she was still angry and hurt, but she'd made him uncomfortable. 

And of course, she thought bitterly, the Doctor's sensitivities always took preference.

But then, finally, he did answer--albeit stiffly. "I grew up with my cousins."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"What was that like?"

He shifted positions, hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back a bit, his trainers lifting so the worn soles were momentarily on display. He was looking up, face intent as though he was thinking very carefully. Eventually he rested forward again and studied his laces, seemingly documenting their every flaw. "I guess you could say it was...lonely."

Rose felt a lump rise in her throat, but cleared it quickly and pressed on. "What about your parents?"

He shook his head briefly, still not looking at her. "I remember...bits, about them. My mother especially. They were good people." He looked up, finally, but still not at her. His mouth was set in a line.

"This was a bad idea," Rose said. "'M sorry. I was just curious. I like...learning things about you," she finished lamely. Then, in an aside to herself, "you know every last unimpressive thing about me."

He shrugged one shoulder. "I'd hardly call you unimpressive. Human girl just barely out of her teens, traveling through time and space. And doing a bang-up job of it." His eyes met hers, and she had to fight down a blush. "What I don't know," he went on, "is how you got so brave."

Now it was Rose's turn to hesitate. The Doctor's brow furrowed in confusion. She stared at him for a long moment. "Well...."

"Go on then," he said hurriedly. His tone implied that it was only fair he grill her in return.

She chewed her lip. "A long time ago, I sort of had a boyfriend who..." she looked down and became very busy plucking at an invisible speck of something in the carpet with her fingernails. "You really want to know?"

"Wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

She nodded in acknowledgment, then went on, quietly. "Well, he hit me. Sometimes."

The Doctor's face darkened; Rose caught it when she glanced up at him through her lashes. "A long time ago," she reiterated, feeling embarrassed and hating it. She knew she didn't need to feel embarrassed, but she couldn't help it. The Doctor was supposed to see her as a strong person, and here she was telling him about some of her worst choices. "I lived with him for a bit, but then I moved out. I learned how to stick up for myself, I guess. When you need to...you know...when it comes right down to it...you either survive, or you give up who you are completely. So I started fighting. Then I met you. I guess it translates over, in a way...being prepared for anything." She smiled up at him, only to find him gazing at her intently, a deep sadness sheltering at the back of his eyes. 

Rose shivered.

"You still cold?" The Doctor asked, noticing.

"Seriously, it must have dropped twenty degrees. You really don't feel it?"

"Oh, I feel it," he granted. "It's just not affecting me as much."

"Well, lucky you." Rose pulled the blanket up around her ears and tucked it against her chin with tight fists, shivering again. 

"I want to knock his block off and feed him to a Dalek," the Doctor said ominously.

Rose had been lost in thought, but now looked up, confused. "Huh? Who?"

He snorted. "The man who hit you." He fixed her with such a determined--yet distracted--gaze that she felt a thrill of heat shoot down the length of her, searing through her heart along the way. She couldn't help but feel...well, _loved,_ when he got all protective. That probably wasn't his intent, but...there you had it. He looked the way he did when they were in the thick of something and it had just become very serious.

"I'm here with _you_ now, though," Rose said, knowing nothing else would do to ease that look.

The Doctor nodded begrudgingly. "Yes. And I know you don't need protecting." He said this with a hint of knowing, as though he'd read her completely. 

She smiled. "I'm glad you would, though. So you know."

The Doctor switched topics quickly, as if he hadn't heard her. "You were right--this is entirely unpleasant. Ah, I know!" He began to glow with his usual enthusiasm again, as though someone had flicked a switch, and he once again disappeared beneath the edge of the fort. He came back quickly with a thick tome in hand.

"Some light reading?" Rose asked dryly.

He flashed a manic grin at her. "I've always wanted to show you this, but we've never had time."

He sat beside her, hunching over and positioning the book so she'd have a good view as he opened it in front of them. She watched on, both curious and eager with second-hand excitement, as he got to what he was looking for. She let out a coo of amazement and delight, her eyes widening. Neither of them noticed that the Aquanuis bulbs had switched to a pale yellow.

The Doctor traced a finger over the ancient tome in front of them, dust rising as his fingertip gently scraped the surface of the page, tracing mountain ranges and deep valleys. The image before them was 3-D, lit up with a sun that Rose couldn't see, but rather sensed. It was like discovering a whole new way to see things; she could almost feel the breeze running over the landscape they were looking at. 

"Wow," she breathed. 

"I know," the Doctor said, his voice low and awed, rumbling in his chest. "One of the few things I have left from my childhood. I kept this like it was contraband, hid it under my bed...."

"Like a dirty magazine." Rose chuckled.

The Doctor said nothing for a moment, but when Rose glanced sideways at him, he was smiling softly, as though acknowledging the accuracy of what she'd said.

"Well, I wanted this more than anything. To travel...to see these places."

Rose watched the way he traced the pages, and forced herself to swallow and to draw a deep breath. She mentally kicked her arse out of the gutter. 

"This is why you became a Time Lord?"

He didn't look at her. His brow furrowed as he thought about her question. "Nah, it was more...timey-wimey...than all that. I wanted to be a Time Lord, and then this found me. Validated my desires."

 _Sort of like how you found me,_ Rose thought before she knew where her mind was going, and she quickly tucked her lips against the fist she was using to prop her chin up. She gazed intently at the book. The floor under her was cold, and she tried to stiffen all of her muscles as much as possible so that he wouldn't notice that a constant shiver was gradually building in her.

The Doctor turned a page and they watched, hushed, as a river flowed silently across the page. 

After a minute, the Doctor raised his head and gazed at the roof of their blanket fort. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Nothing," he murmured. "Absolutely nothing. No TARDIS, no life, no sound." Rose shivered beside him. "No heat. Oh, budge," he said, getting down on his belly and nudging her til she lifted the edge of her blanket. He slid under, tucking the side under himself so that they made one big burrito. 

Rose bit her bottom lip sheepishly in apology, and shivered another traitorous shiver. The Doctor wrapped his arm around her shoulders and urged her closer. 

"Sorry," Rose muttered, smiling but embarrassed as her teeth beginning to chatter. "I didn't realize how c-cold I was."

"It's all right," he said quietly, squeezing her shoulder. 

Rose closed her eyes. "Thanks for showing me your book."

"Like I said...I always wanted to show you."

Rose glanced sideways at him for a long moment. 

She didn't realize he knew she was looking until he asked, "What?"

She shook her head and looked away self-consciously, burying her mouth in the cuff of her sleeve. "S'nothin'."

He nudged her. "Tell me."

She shook her head again.

"Tell me, Rose."

"No."

"Tell me tell me tell me Rose, I'm not gonna stop asking 'til you--"

"O _kay_ , O _kay_ ," she relented. "I was just remembering...the last you."

"Oh." He said nothing for a moment, then turned the page in front of them. "Look familiar?"

He'd changed the topic so fast her head just about spun around, but she looked where he was pointing. She couldn't help but smile. "We never ran off any planet faster."

"Flying insects the size of housecats."

"Laughing gas in the air."

"Locals who thought having a mouth-hole is rude."

Rose shook her head. "The things that make us nostalgic."

He turned the page again. "Do you do that often, then?"

"What?"

"Remember...stuff."

"Not _often_ , just...sometimes."

"Do you miss me, then?"

She looked over at him and saw that he was watching her carefully, a hint of insecurity--which he probably didn't think she could see--flickering across his features.

Without consciously meaning to, she reached out and laid her hand over his on top of the book. She stroked his fingers and gave him a little smile. "How can I miss you when you're right here?"

His eyes widened infinitesimally for a moment; he looked about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He extracted his hand gently from hers even as he looked away. "So...."

"Yeah," she said, leaning forward eagerly over the book to see what he'd show her next.

***

Rose blinked slowly in the darkness, trying to let her eyesight adjust. The bulbs had long since gone out, and it took her a moment to remember where she was. She was, in fact, still in the fort with the Doctor, but she'd nodded off a while ago. She was on her side and he was next to her on his back. Her brow furrowed as she slowly regained her sight enough to observe him.

He wasn't looking at her; he had one hand under his head, elbow bent, and was looking up at the roof of the fort, stretching his jaw repeatedly.

"Doctor?" she asked, and was amused to see him jump a little.

"Oh. You're awake. Lovely; this is boring."

"What're you...doing?"

He turned his head to meet her eyes briefly, smiling sheepishly. "Trying to yawn?"

"Why?"

He shrugged vaguely. "Never done it before."

"You've _never_ yawned."

"Nope."

"And why were you trying to?"

"It's what you lot do when you're tired. Thought maybe if I tried it I could go to sleep."

Rose couldn't help but giggle. He had the logic of a five-year-old sometimes, but it was endearing because he was dead-serious about it. "You don't have to stay here with me."

He shifted on his side to face her. He wasn't laughing. "Maybe I want to."

Her smile slowly faded. 

"Come here," he whispered.

Rose swallowed heavily, feeling a heavy heat course through her, along with a bolt of nervous anticipation. She did as he said, however, and inched closer to him.

He reached out and encircled her waist with his arm, hauling her closer until she could feel some of his radiating warmth. Only then did Rose realize how much colder the TARDIS had become. She smiled and tucked her head under his chin so she could avoid the temptation of his mouth, nuzzling against him.

"Oi! Your nose is _freezing_ ," the Doctor said as she buried said feature against his neck.

"Well, warm it up then," Rose chuckled.

"My TARDIS should be doing that. You can thank _her_ when it falls off. How'm _I_ supposed to warm it up? Like this?" He pulled back, and when she looked up he nipped playfully at her nose, making her let out peals of laughter. "Can't have bits falling off my companions." He butted his forehead against hers, grinning as she grinned back. 

It seemed to occur to both of them, simultaneously, that the bulbs had turned on again, a low, soothing violet in the dead of artificial night. She had rolled slightly onto her back and his groin was pressed against her hip; one of her arms was circled around his neck, her hand braced against the back of his head, her fingers in his hair. The grin faded from his face even as Rose observed, nervously, that she could see the violet light reflected in his irises. 

In a seeming non-sequitor she said impulsively, "I'm sorry."

He sobered. "What? Why?"

She swallowed, feeling guilty, her eyes shifting away from his. "Your companions always expect you to act human, don't they, Doctor?"

He said nothing.

She glanced back up at him through her lashes. "I know you aren't."

He hitched her closer, as if she was in danger of falling away, but still said nothing. He leaned his forehead against her temple and she felt the warm humidity of his breath against her cheek. They lay like that in the darkness for several long minutes, not speaking. Then he heaved a long, slow sigh, and she felt his nose trail across her cheek until his mouth was against her ear. "Are you warm enough?"

 _Not nearly,_ Rose thought. "Just stay," was what she said. After a while her eyelids grew heavy. Just as she was drifting on the border of a deep sleep she could have sworn she heard him murmur something to her, his lips grazing the delicate patch of skin just along her jaw.

"Maybe I'm not as far away as you think."


End file.
